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When Dotcom’s systems expert, Stephan Goodhue, arrived, he found computer equipment dismantled and spread across a bench. Police officers, rather than producing the material they had said would be made available, attempted to pressure him into entering passwords for access, he later testified. Astute and resolute on data privacy, Goodhue refused. It left Dotcom’s team pondering how else they could get the information needed to fight the charges.

Concerns over information weren’t restricted to those who had operated Megaupload. There were millions of Megaupload users who also wanted access to their information. The future of the material stored was still unclear. The Electronic Frontier Foundation had by now joined legal action involving Megaupload, seeking the return of users’ data. The EFF had taken a case on behalf of user Kyle Goodwin, the high school sport videographer whose backup files were trapped on the filehosting company’s servers. About the end of March, the EFF asked the court to establish a process by which Megaupload users could get their files back. EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry said: “Megaupload’s innocent users deserve an opportunity to get their important data back before it’s destroyed forever.”

The case was pursued as the Megaupload team began to access and mine their own information. Rummaging through the files showed their users included many people pledged to the institutions leading the prosecution against them. They had account holders from domains including fbi.gov, dhs.gov, doe.gov, hhs.gov, treas.gov, nasa.gov, senate.gov and uscourts.gov. In total, there were 1058 accounts of which 344 users had premium access. The total number of files was 15,242 files eating a total of 1,851,791 MB. Not surprisingly, with a huge commitment offshore, the military was a big user. It had 15,634 users from domains including af.mil, army.mil, centcom.mil, navy.mil and osd.mil. Almost two-thirds — 10,223 users — paid for upgrades to premium Megaupload accounts. They stored 340,983 files — a total of 96,507,779 MB.

The exposure of the unlawful restraining order came as the bail restrictions were lifted and the four were able to get back online. Judge David Harvey — the jurist who would be handling the extradition case — returned internet access to the group. He also allowed Dotcom to pursue his musical aspirations back at Roundhead Studios. Judge Harvey — a self-admitted geek — said Dotcom had to pxt an image of himself from a smartphone to show he was at the studios.

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